Sunday, November 20, 2016

Concerns that a Donald
Trump presidency will result in changes or the end of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) should prompt Canada to respond in an “intelligent
way.”

Former Cabinet
minister Perrin Beatty, now president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, made
the comment and said “the world has changed” as a result of Trump’s election
victory.

The president-elect
spoke of renegotiating “our horrible trade agreements” with China and NAFTA to
get “a much better deal for America.”

Speaking to the
Confederation Club, Beatty said Canada should be prepared to move on its own
trade agreements should there be a collapse of U.S. participation in such deals
as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Steps should
include Canada diversifying its trade, maintaining openness to the global
economy, and removing barriers to Canadian goods and services, he suggested.

NAFTA, enacted 22
years ago between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, is the “envy of the world” and
Canada should fight for a deal to benefit all.

“Revisiting the
agreement could provide an opportunity to modernize the deal and to present
Canadian requests,” Beatty said.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

There’s been some
unprecedented interest by Americans in moving to Canada since Donald Trump
became the U.S. President-elect.

For some time,
numerous celebrities and people have expressed an interest in getting to know
Canada better.

It hasn’t been this
way since the era of the Vietnam War when thousands of draft dodgers and
resisters fled to their northern neighbor’s country.

The Canadian
immigration website crashed on U.S. election night and until 8:30 a.m. the next
day when it couldn’t handle a huge surge in traffic from Americans looking for
advice on how to move north.

There were more
than 200,000 users accessing the website, five times higher than usual, said
department spokesperson Sonia Lesage.

Upsetting to some
U.S. residents are comments by Trump about deportations of illegal immigrants and
reopening international trade agreements.

Moving company HireAHelper,
operating in Lakeland, Florida and other U.S. cities, is advertising “free help
loading the truck” for people relocating to Canada and has a guide on how to
make the move. hireahelper.com

Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau congratulated Trump on his victory and said “we offer our hand in partnership with our neighbors as
friends and allies as they move forward.”

Monday, November 7, 2016

A “confidant” of
former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been fined $50,000 for illegal
lobbying.

Ontario Court Judge
Catherine Kehoe said the fine for Bruce Carson is a necessary deterrent.

He was convicted on
three counts for his work on the national energy strategy while a director of
the Canada School of Energy and Environment and later vice-chair of the Energy
Policy Institute of Canada.

Court was told he
was under a five-year prohibition from lobbying public office holders since he
had worked in the Prime Minister’s Office until February 2009.

He had been paid
about $600,000 for lobbying work from 2009 to 2011 and the judge ruled he had
contact with officials of numerous government offices.

“It is necessary to
impose a significant fine to deter Mr. Carson and others who would engage in
lobbying and ignore the law, which goes to the heart of the integrity of
government and public trust of government,” the judge said.

Carson was found
not guilty last year of influence-peddling for attempting to have government
officials buy water filtration systems from a company that employed his former
escort girlfriend.